ipl-logo

Self Respect In Night By Elie Wiesel

1022 Words5 Pages

Self-Respect or Self-Destruction Hope is an abstract belief that there is still a chance phenomenon that will occur in regards to a situation which one anticipates. Life is similar to this concept in which sudden occurrences happen that are completely out of any individual’s control. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, the narrator, Eliezer struggles as a victim and witness of the heinous atrocities of the Holocaust and facing the adversity where the lack of self-respect caused the people to conform to the injustices of the world and ultimately lose hope. Without Eliezer’s manifestation of hope, his fate would have been negatively altered. Nevertheless, conformity dehumanized the people and the will to survive no longer was a priority. Due to the atrocities …show more content…

The Nazis have chosen to execute two young men. When one of them is about to die by hanging, he says, “Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse!” (pg.69) this is an example of how self-respect formulates an individual’s response to injustice. Many were filled with distaste, as the God, they were so devoted to had abandoned them when they were victim to such torture. “What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to the stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you do on troubling this poor people’s minds, their ailing bodies?” (pg.66). Many couldn’t tolerate the silence of God; this resulted in the lack of self-respect as most began to rebel against their religious upbringing. “I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so…/there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence…/I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, or protest against Him.” (pg.68) “For the first time I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the Eternal, and terrible Master of the Universe, choose to be silent. What was there to thank him for?” (pg.33) It is apparent that Elie has changed from his former religious self who was dedicated to learning his religion and studying Kabbalah and Talmud everyday despite what his father said, however, it is unknown whether Elie completely abandoned his religion. We see indications of Elie questioning and doubting God, however, we also see his self-contradictory behaviour of returning to praise. “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and their redemption to come. As for me, I had seized to pray…/I was

Show More
Related
737 Words | 3 Pages

Elie has just heard a tale of a son betraying his father and prays to God to help him never cross his father after not believing in God for a long time. The author tells the reader, “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed” (Wiesel 91). This reveals that despite Elie losing all his faith in God, he recognizes he’s at his weakest and prays to God to help him. He turns to God at the moment he believes he needs him most. Elie’s decision to pray is a significant turning point in Elie’s identity.

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the darkest days of Night, there is still hope for Elie Wiesel. At the end of the Holocaust, over 60,000 Jews were liberated by US soldiers and more than 90,000 Jews escaped death camps. For them, there was still hope in the universe. In Elie’s memoir, he struggles with his belief in God and the intertwining existence of hope in the universe.

Read More
508 Words | 3 Pages

One way authors show their understanding of the impact bearing witness has on others is by preserving history. By doing this, Alexander Kimel, Primo Levi, and Elie Wiesel raise awareness about events from the Holocaust that could go ignored and ultimately forgotten. The first way an author shows this is in The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942. In this poem, The author struggles to understand and remember what happened while he was placed in the Ghetto of Rohatyn. He soon realizes the responsibility of bearing witness, and that even if it is difficult, he is obligated to remember, so that he can preserve history, “And a long tortuous journey into an unnamed place / Converting living souls, into ashes and gas.

Read More
770 Words | 4 Pages

Forgiving For What? The book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is a book about Elie’s experiences in the concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald with his father during the Holocaust. Now as we know, they both have had to go through traumatic sightings such as people being sent to the concentration camps, people dying while walking in the cold, seeing a friend give up and soon to pass away, and babies and little kids being burned alive. This is too much to forgive.

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

And if God is God, why is He letting us suffer?” (1) The lifelong quest for answers to these questions shaped his theology

Read More
536 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever thought of giving up when times get rough? In the story “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie and his family were brought into a concentration camp. Later they got split up, but that did not them from giving up hope. through many rough events and scenarios, Elie had to work hard to stay alive and try to get out. In “Night”, the theme of the memoir is don’t give up hope, because there is always something positive in the end.

Read More
588 Words | 3 Pages

What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds,

Read More
839 Words | 4 Pages

“No thought of revenge” Elie Wiesel writes in his memoir Night. In this chronicle Wiesel retells his story as he and his father were imprisoned in a Concentration Camp during the Holocaust. Despite the suffering he was put through by the Nazis, Wiesel does think of seeking revenge. Wiesel’s thorough description of events such as the twenty kilometer march through the snow help set the serious tone. His bitterness towards his past is displayed through Wiesel’s imagery, which is a prime element in his memoir Night.

Read More
760 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and beliefs. “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14). This quote shows how strongly he believed before experiencing the hardships of the Holocaust

Read More
2034 Words | 9 Pages

Elie had witnessed the murders of thousands of people and watched as God stood silently at the side and did nothing to try to help the innocent Jews. Elie exclaims, “Why, but why would I bless Him?... How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in furnaces?” (Wiesel 67).

Read More
1223 Words | 5 Pages

Evil is around every corner, always skulking about. It is the process of dehumanization that makes possible the evils of war, and desensitizes the victimizer to smaller evils committed on a daily basis. Dehumanization occurs in Night and in “Pirandellian Prison” and also on the Internet. Evil is everywhere no matter where you go either something will be bad or someone will be bad. Some people have fortitude to withstand the punishments that the guards did to the prisoners.

Read More
756 Words | 4 Pages

Everyone hopes for something. People hope for their favorite team to win or they hope to get what they want for Christmas, but there are people out there that hope to see the sun rise again. To see their family just one more time because they don’t know if they will make it or not. In the novels night by Elie Wiesel and sold by Patricia McCormick, the main characters have to find out how much hope they really have. By examining the novels nigh and sold we can see that having hope is the key to survival.

Read More
598 Words | 3 Pages

Often times, when the man is faced with a difficult situation, like that of death or confusion, he questions the intentions of God. It is as if he cannot understand why God’s world could come to the point where there is “no sign of life” and his son is asking him about his own death (11). He does not understand God’s allowance for destruction results in hopelessness, all while being “nameless in the night” (15). He does not feel that God “knows nothing” about the torture he is inflicting upon his “prophets,” he believes God “must” know what he is allowing, and because he is almighty to the man, he has a reason (15,

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong even to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and belief in God. We learned how strong his beliefs were when he says,“I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14).

Read More
506 Words | 3 Pages

Hope is a helpful tool to push people through the hardest times in life. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, there are numerous examples of hope helping people and revitalizing their confidence. People used hope to help them through rough times. People hope that friends and family are still alive. Also hope that the Front liberates the camps and frees everyone.

Read More

More about Self Respect In Night By Elie Wiesel

Open Document